Then, there was the fun habit that I had after said gathering, where I went home and overthought every conversation, wondering if someone took my words the wrong way, or if I said something idiotic. I’d only been standing around for about an hour, and my palms were already sweaty from the pressure of it all.

Why did an hour feel like ten when you were in a place you didn’t want to be?

“Say cheese!” a photographer remarked before flashing a camera in my eyes and hurrying off to his next victim. I blinked a few times to try to recover my sight and thought of his words.

Cheese.

Ugh.

What I wouldn’t have given to have some deep-fried, bad-for-my-hips-good-for-my-soul cheese in my mouth right at that moment. I daydreamed about cheese oozing out of a mozzarella stick as I placed a tiny slice of sweet potato into my mouth. It was topped with some weird smelly cheese, pecans, and cranberries. The waitress told me the green sprinkled on top was rosemary, but I was pretty sure it was grass.

Sweet potato crostini bites, she’d called them, but I knew I was actually just eating fancy trash.

I wasn’t a very fancy girl. Never had been, never would be. I never really needed more than some good wings and french fries. At least, that had been the case before my diagnosis. Alcohol had been completely cut out of my life ever since I was placed on the heart transplant list the previous summer, and it’d been two years since I had anything deep fried because of my condition. I’d been forced to give my whole life a complete makeover.

“Would you like another?” the waitress asked, and I cringed, making her hurry away with an annoyed sigh.

I didn’t mean to make a face. I simply hadn’t ever been one to have a solid poker face. All my true emotions and feelings shined through my eyes and the curves of my lips. If I was mad, annoyed, or disgusted, everyone around me could tell.

I wondered if I’d gotten that trait from my mother. I wondered if she was ever displeased with something, if her displeasure sat on the bridge of her nose as it wrinkled up. If she was happy, did her eyes shine in such a special way?

I shook the thought of her away before letting it settle in my heart. The last thing I wanted to do was make myself sad during an event meant to be a happy occasion. Therefore, heavy thoughts were strictly off-limits.

With a deep breath, I surveyed the room before me.

Over one hundred people had showed up to a dinner to celebrate my fiancé’s new position running Roe Real Estate West Coast. It was the first work event I’d been to with him, and I was terrified. I didn’t know a soul outside of Jason’s parents.

The dinner was extremely fancy. Or, more so, it was a gala. Everything was so over-the-top for truly no reason at all except Jason could afford it.

We could afford it.

Jason hated when I called it his money, but at the end of the day, it was his. He was the extremely successful businessman, and I was the junior editor his mother had met two years earlier then introduced to her son.

A whirlwind romance set up by Marie.

True, we’d only been dating for a year and a half, but it felt like longer.

“Cucumber bites?” a woman asked, shoving a tray in my face with literally just pieces of cucumber sprinkled with paprika.

My nose obviously wrinkled up. “No, I’m good.”

The problem with galas was the lack of food and the abundance of liquor. Everyone around me was drinking, except for me. But I was a big believer in using carbohydrates to soak up the alcohol sitting in my gut, and I was sure some of those individuals could’ve benefited from a bread bowl or two.

Cocktails and truffle fries.

Whiskey and pizza.

Beer and cheese fries.

Oh, my gosh…

Did I mention fries? What I wouldn’t have given for a big plate of french fries right then, but none of that was on the menu at The Lily that night. There was hardly any food to be found, just overpriced bite-sized appetizers.

Maybe that was how rich people stayed rich—they didn’t eat, so no need to spend money on food.

Two hands landed on my hips, and my body melted into the touch. I knew it was him before he even spoke. Jason always smelled like smoky rosewood dipped in sex appeal. I turned to face him, and my heart skipped a few beats when I found his frown, which in turn made me frown.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Your hermit crab vibes are strong tonight,” he whispered, leaning into me. “People are talking, saying you seem uppity.”

“Sorry. My brain’s shutting down. I can’t survive on air.” I placed my hands against his chest and gave him my best puppy dog eyes. “Can we just ditch and find some real food?”